La Paz and the Worlds Most Dangerous Road

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I knew we were going to have a good time in La Paz, the Hostal we had chosen had an attached micro-brewery, the beers from which were served in a rooftop bar with spectacular views over the city. The beers were amazing, probably the best we have had all trip, there really was no need to leave the hostal!

When we did leave the hostal we just wandered the streets taking in the bizzare sights that La Paz has to offer such as the Llama foetuses for sale in the witches market, the protests that seem to occur on a daily basis complete with marching bands and sometimes even dynamite and the infamous San Pedro prison.

After a few beers one night, me an Fabian thought it would be a good idea to mountain bike down the ¨road of death¨ aptly named as apparently it is the most dangerous road in the world, a great idea then! The day started at over 4700m from which we would drop to to just 1000m along a road which at times is just a track a few feet wide carved into the mountain-side, with verticle drops of up to 600m on one side. At the top, I checked my brakes...(we had heard horror stories of peoples brakes not working, or even worse being set-up the wrong way round, you can guess what happened to those people) Our guide filled us with confidence when he explained that it is very rare that he doesn´t end up taking someone to hospital and just 4 months ago he had someone die in his arms, heavy stuff, why exactly did i sign up for this again?

Then we were off, in what was to be the most amazing bike ride of my life, forget biking to Tony´s shop for a twix and a cola, this was even better. We travelled over 50km through spectacular scenery and hardly had to pedal once, this is how riding a bike should be. Thankfully we all survived, although we were told the horror stories and shown the crosses littering the roadside of those who had not been so lucky..

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